SARAJEVO (Reuters) - Bosnia peace overseer Paddy Ashdown fired Croat Dragan Covic from Bosnia’s tripartite presidency yesterday for refusing to step down in the face of serious corruption charges. “I decided to require Dragan Covic to step down from his position in the presidency with immediate effect,” Ashdown told a news conference in Sarajevo. Ashdown together with US and EU officials had repeatedly urged Covic to step down after state prosecutors indicted him this month together with six other Bosnian Croats for customs evasion, corruption and abuse of office.

TRIPOLI (AFP) - A Libyan court announced yesterday it will rule in two months on whether to consider an appeal from five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor against a death sentence for allegedly infecting children with AIDS. Relatives of the victims demonstrated outside the court during the preliminary hearing, waving banners demanding “Death to the child killers.” Two of the HIV-infected youngsters joined in, wearing mock military uniforms and carrying fake pistols.

A Bosnian Serb, Ljubomir Borovcanin, charged in connection with the massacre of some 8,000 Muslims during Bosnia’s 1992-95 war, is to surrender to the UN war crimes tribunal, Bosnian-Serb President Dragan Cavic said yesterday. “I have information that the transfer (of Borovcanin to The Hague) will take place within the next few days,” Cavic told journalists. (AFP)

Police found 10 mortar and gun shells hidden in a cave in a central district in Albania, police said. Acting on a tip, the police discovered the 82-milimeter mortar shells and 75-milimeter gun shells in Qafe Shtame, in the Kruja district, 32 kilometers (19 miles) north of capital, Tirana, a statement said. (AP)

The government of Serbia-Montenegro yesterday rejected a proposal for opening secret police files from the past six decades of authoritarian rule in Serbia. The proposal, put forward by government coalition partner Serbian Renewal Movement, called for tens of thousands of secret service dossiers to be opened by an independent commission for public review. Under the bill, informants also would be named. The government rejected the proposal, saying it did not include solutions to possible “political, security, legal, ethical or other consequences.” (AP)

The Prime Minister of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Vlado Buckovski, said during a visit to Croatia yesterday that he hoped the fellow ex-Yugoslav nation will begin membership talks with the EU. “When one country passes that road, it paves the way and eases it for the others,” Buckovski said after meeting with his Croatian counterpart, Ivo Sanader. (AP)